Want an Outstanding Personal Statement?

While the following guidelines are intended specifically for writing personal statements
for medical residency and medical fellowship in the U.S., these same concepts apply to personal statements for all other programs
as well.

What Is a Personal Statement?

A personal statement is a person's narrative of how he or she came to apply for the
position being sought. It should be concise and efficient, is generally best organized in chronological order, and should
generally range in length from 650 to 850 words.

Where Our Expertise Comes From

Interviews With Program Directors:
We interview program directors and admission committee members to know exactly what they want—and don't want—to
see in a personal statement.

1,000+ Personal Statements Every Year:
We consult on, critique, revise, edit and proofread 1,000+ personal statements annually. From this volume alone, we
know what it takes to stand out.

In-House, Highly Trained Personal Statement Experts:
We do not use freelancers or students. And only our editors who
have undergone rigorous training work on personal statements.

Our Clients Get Accepted

The only clients who have used our personal statement services and were not accepted into a program
either ignored our suggestions or did not meet the program's minimum requirements.

Quick Questions

Generally speaking, a fully developed personal statement
will be approximately 750. Some programs (e.g. dentistry), though, may require shorter word
counts. With few exceptions, if your personal statement is over 850 words, it is too long. If it is under
650 words, it is too short.

The Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS®) allows
up to 28,000 characters with spaces, which is approximately 5,200 words. However, no program director will
read a personal statement that long. Most won't even read any of it.

First is to be specific to your story. If everyone else writes it
in their personal statements, then you should not, unless it is particularly relevant to you.

An example of this is an IMG who writes, without any obvious
reason for doing so, that she wants to pursue residency in the United States because the U.S. is at the forefront
of medicine. A second example is a candidate who writes that he wants to pursue residency in a program that will
give him the knowledge and training he will need to succeed in his chosen field. These are both vague statements
that should be included only if they relate specifically to your personal career path.

Second is is a rephrasing of the first: to write only of your
particular experience. This is your greatest strength and what will set you apart. If you write that you want to
pursue a career in medicine in order to serve the community, we will ask what kind of community and what way do you
see yourself serving. We will ask where this desire has come from and how you have pursued it.

If you write that you want to be a leader, we will ask where you
want to be a leader, why you want to be a leader, what kind of leader you want to be, and in what way specifically
you plan to lead others.

To start with a quote. To use a quote successfully, it must
be both personally and particularly relevant to the candidate. It must be the driving theme through every aspect of the
essay. We have seen this done successfully—meaning that there was no way for the personal statement to be better
without it—in just a handful of the personal statements we have read.

2.

To start with a simile or metaphor. An example of this is a
personal statement that compares the pursuit of medicine to building a robot or any other activity. As with a quote,
to use a simile or metaphor successfully, it must be both personally and particularly relevant to the candidate and
the driving theme through every aspect of the essay, and it has been likewise rare to see this done successfully.

3.

To define the specialty in the personal statement, or otherwise
to make statements that the program director what he/she will already know. An example of this is to start a
personal statement with: "Internal medicine requires an understanding of how the different systems of the body affect
each other."

4.

To describe experiences in only vague or general terms. This
includes both not providing significant detail and not describing the effect the experiences have had on the candidate
personally.

Start with a simple, straightforward statement with how
you started on the path that you are on. An example of this is: "The first time I saw how medicine can help
people was when I was five years old and visited my mother in the hospital."

Second is to write of your particular experience. This
is your greatest strength and what will set you apart.

Absolutely, but we won't write it for you. For those needing
assistance with developing a personal statement, we offer our
Personal Statement Consultation service.
With it, we will review your resume/CV if provided and, in one-on-one consultation with one of our personal
statement editors, guide you through a series of questions and feedback to develop a concise plan for drafting
your personal statement.

After you have drafted your personal statement, we will then
review your personal statement with our
Personal Statement Revision & Critique service for any adjustments needed to make it as polished and successful
as possible.

Yes, you should still have it edited, specifically
for feedback/critique (see our
Personal Statement Revision and Critique service) regarding how successful you are in communicating
your points. It is our opportunity to help make what you have started as successful for you as possible.

Samples of Our Work

Feedback We've Received

“When I came to DLA for help with my personal statement, the application period had already opened, and I knew I was
behind. I signed up for the consultation service and cannot be happier with the results. I just had an interview,
and the interviewer said my personal statement was one of the best she had ever read, that it clearly presented
who I was and the journey I have been on to reach this point. Hearing that made it totally worth the cost!”